Thursday, September 28, 2006

I welcome the creation of a geographers' blog, particularly one established in Waikato. Thanks for the initiative Suzanne.

I think our course meeting on Monday revealed some of the issues students might face with 14 digit grid references this year, and I am happy to organise local meetings (and even school visits
to use the GPS) if this would be useful. I am not sure whether I will have time to get aerial photography of each school and organise a visit, but I think this would be useful; perhaps 2007 when we have some idea about how students will be assessed?

I have just seen an application form for KAREN (Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network), and I am going to see if we are eligible to get some support for more (local) networking; much of the talking I am doing these days is in virtual communities, but I value the sort of face to face conversations we had on Monday.

An aside: those of you with long memories will be pleased to see that the Geographical Society recognised the life-time contribution of Chris Davidson to geographical education in this country. He was an important contributor from the 1970s through until the late 1990s, and is still a committed geographer. For those of you with shorter memories, I wrote a bit about him in a 2005 New Zealand Geographer.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

SCHOLARSHIP ASSESSMENT SPECIFICATIONS
The Assessment Specifications for Scholarship Geography are posted on the NZQA website. A circular is sent to all schools, notifying this specification and the specifications for a range of other subjects.
The specifications can be downloaded from the NZQA website http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/scholarship/subjects/resources.html

This site also provides information about previous scholarship papers including national statistics and assessor reports.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

LEVEL 3 INTERNALLY ASSESSED ACHIEVEMENT STANDARDS
These standards were revised at regular intervals. Minor revisions may be made at the end of each year if the moderators report the need for clarification of a standard. Assessment activities need to reflect these changes. Subscribe to the NZQA website if you wish to get notification of changes.
When choosing assessment activities from the TKI website, you need to ensure the activities reflect or have been adapted to meet the requirements of the current version (V2) of the standard.
Activities posted on the TKI site are not pre-moderated. It is important teachers check an activity and its assessment schedule carefully to ensure it meets the requirements of the standard.